Page 113 of Always Meant for You
“You don’t want to be with me?” I ask again.
“I want you,” he says, almost to himself. “God, Mabel, I want you more than anything.”
“Then why are you pulling away?”
He turns, his face shadowed. “Because this isn’t happening here.” He glances at the blanket and the field. “This was a mistake.”
“You don’t mean that,” I say, rising slowly.
He doesn’t speak.
Two can play at this game.
Blinking back tears and without another word, I gather the blanket with shaking hands and walk back to the truck. The silence behind me feels louder than thunder.
I open the door and slide inside. I don’t slam it. I don’t scream. But my hands won’t stop trembling.
He climbs in a moment later.
We still don’t speak.
And this time, the silence between us doesn’t feel peaceful. It feels final.
It’s happened again.
Rejection. The quiet humiliation that comes when someone sees you fully, then chooses to leave. Only this time, I don’t get the dignity of solitude. I have to sit beside him, steady myself against the silence.
I reach for my phone, searching for something to drown out the noise in my head. The Elverna account is already gaining traction. I should be proud. The content is polished. The strategy is working. But I can’t feel it.
My thumb hovers over the screen, then drops away. I slide the phone back into my purse, and my fingers graze the edge of my passport. It’s a reminder of what I want, of what I promised myself.
Beside me, Cal grips the wheel, his eyes fixed on the dark stretch of road ahead.
I glance at him, then look away.
The familiar turnoff appears, and Cal signals before easing the truck down the narrow drive toward my farm. I keep my hands still in my lap, fighting the urge to fidget as every second stretches.
He still doesn’t speak. Neither do I. The farmhouse comes into view. I’m almost through this. I survived twenty-one years in this place. I can handle eight more weeks.
I reach up, touch the M at my neck, and look toward Jamie’s old bedroom window.
What is happening, Jamie? What does your best friend want from me?
Cal finally breaks the silence. “Your dad’s probably asleep. The medication usually knocks him out by now.”
That’s what he has to say after everything that happened?
He pulls to a stop. I unbuckle and open the door before he can say another word. I step out, close the door gently behind me, and head toward the house without looking back. I feel his eyes on me. I feel his pain and the unease coming off him in waves.
I want to go back. I want to beg him to tell me what’s going through his head. I want us to figure out a way through this together.
I pause before I open the door to the main house, waiting for him to call out to me.
He doesn’t.
Inside, the lights are low. The air feels heavier, each footstep echoing too loudly in the quiet. My father’s snores drift faintly from the end of the hall. I get to my room and close the door. And then I stand there, disoriented by the rush of everything I’m trying not to feel. I slip off my heels, letting them fall where they land. My dress clings to the places where his hands had been.
I don’t know what happened. He’d reached for me like he couldn’t stop himself, like needing me was the only thing that made sense. And then he looked at me like none of it had happened, like he was ashamed of himself.
